Class IX: Tradition Criticism

1. Class IX:Tradition Criticism Apologetics Glenn Giles December, 2009

2. Tradition Criticism Definition “Traditio-historical criticism is an engagement with the text of the NT designed to uncover the processes and the stages by which the text emerged” (Green, 39) --It studies the development of tradition from Jesus to the appearance of the first written NT documents. All quotes unless other wise noted in this powerpoint are from (P. H. Davids, “Tradition Criticism” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1992).

3. Criteria of Authenticity 1. Multiple attestation: Any tradition found in more than one “independent strand of Gospel tradition is likely to be genuine.” 2. Coherence: Any tradition that is the same or similar to other known genuine traditions about Jesus is assumed to be genuine. 3. Dissimilarity: Any tradition that is not similar to Jewish tradition or “the traditions of the post-Easter church” is likely to be genuine. 4. The “longer more developed tradition” is less likely to be genuine and the “the theologically more difficult” tradition is more likely to be genuine.

4. Assumptions 1. Stories and sayings of Jesus circulated in the early church as free floating pericopes is not the total story, rather there were schools of tradition that functioned for some 30 years or more before being written down. These traditions were shaped by the Sitz im Leben of the early church communities. It is assumed that “a tradition is the product of the post-Easter church unless proven otherwise.”

5. Assumptions 2. By studying the various traditions one can determine the following: a. Which ones “go back to the historical Jesus.” b. Where in the oral time period the tradition arose. c. “What the historical situation of the Christian community actually was.”

6. Assumptions 3. There were three historical schema through which traditions could have been processed in their development a. The Palestinian Jewish-Christian Church This is the earliest “post-Easter” church which spoke Aramaic. Here it is assumed that this church had the “most primitive” Christology which included the use and development of the terms “servant,” “Messiah,” “Son of God,” and “Son of Man.”

7. Assumptions b. The Hellenistic Jewish-Christian Church: This is the expansion of the church to the Diaspora in which there was an interest in “making the gospel relevant to their environment.” As a result terms such as “Christ” and “Lord” were introduced. c. The Hellenistic Gentile Church: This was the non-Jewish church composed of Gentiles which “became a major influence in the church carrying Hellenistic terminology into a fully Gentile realm.”

8. Critique of Assumptions 1. Do we really know that the traditions were created by the post-Easter church community? Can this really be established? 2. Is it really true that the tradition changed so much that only some traditions go back to the historical Jesus? How does one really know that?

9. Critique of Assumptions 3. Is it really possible to determine if and how traditions were shaped by a community’s Sitz im Leben? How do we know that the church was willing to shape and change traditions during that early and short time period when eye witnesses were still alive and would function as a control against change? 4. Must the more developed tradition be less likely genuine and the more difficult tradition necessarily more likely to be genuine? Might it not just seem more developed to us? How do we know if the tradition is difficult to them?

10. Critique of Criteria of Authenticity 1. Multiple attestation: --This does not prove genuineness but that “different communities facing similar situations . . . could shape the tradition in a similar way.” Also, how does one know for sure whether “the tradition is found in truly independent strands rather than in strands which borrowed from each other?” 2. Coherence: --This criterion does not show genuineness as a tradition might just be unique. In addition to even begin with this criterion one must determine first what is genuine. What is the standard and can one really be certain that those traditions about Jesus considered to be genuine are genuine so they can even be used to find coherence.

11. Critique of Criteria of Authenticity 3. Dissimilarity: This criterion only points to what is unique and genuine not to what is not genuine. a. For many scholars, this criterion is used to reject “all traditions not established by it.” This criterion only discovers what is unique about Jesus. One cannot use it to say that everything that is not unique is not genuine. b. This criterion “assumes that there was no continuity between the post-Easter church and Jesus.” This is very doubtful as surely there were traditions that the church wanted to preserve that were Jewish in nature.

12. Critique of Criteria c. This criterion has a self-contradiction: “One the one hand, it is assumed that communities passed on tradition because it fit the life situation of the community. On the other hand, this criterion is looking for traditions which were passed on but which did not fit the life situation of any Christian community.” Hence, the criterion cannot be used to show anything but unique authenticity.

13. Issues with the Historical Development Scheme 1. Since Palestine and the Roman world had been Hellenized to a great extent already is there really any reason to believe that “the so-called Hellenistic titles would not have been meaningful and therefore popular” during and after the time of Jesus even if some Jewish titles were not popular in the world of the Gentiles?

14. Issues with the Historical Development Scheme Cont. 2. Because there is very little material about the historical development of the early church during this short period of time the argument is in danger of becoming “circular.” Tradition History Critics can formulate a hypothesis about the Sitz im Leben from a gospel and then turn around to use that same hypothesis to “determine the authenticity of the various traditions within that Gospel.”

15. Issues with the Historical Development Scheme Cont. 3. There is “no firm historical basis for assuming that traditions about Jesus were not carefully transmitted even before his death or that there was a clear developmental track along which traditions evolved.”

16. Conclusion • Traditio-Historical Criticism is founded on some very questionable and highly speculative assumptions and operates with some very tenuous criteria. As such one should not be compelled to see it as a method to give assured results nor that any of its conclusions as cogent challenges to biblical inspiration.